Nutritional Significance of Cyclodextrins: Indigestibility and Hypolipemic Effect of α-Cyclodextrin

Abstract

Digestibility of α and β-cyclodextrin (CD) and nutritional consequences of a-CD and a CD mixture (β-dextrin, α-, β- and y-CDs - 50, 30, 15 and 5% by weight) were investigated in rats. In contrast with β-CD, α-CD was revealed to be indigestible. Growing rats were fed on diets supplemented with the CD mixture at 19.5, 39, 58.5 and 78% levels for 110 days, resulting in smaller weight gain and body fat deposition when they were fed on a higher CD diet. Rates of weight loss during the restricted feeding were faster in rats fed on a higher CD diet. These were due to food efficiency lowered by CD. Reduced serum and liver triacylglycerol (TG) levels were noted during a 110-day period of feeding of the CD diets, and the former was revealed due to a reduced hepatic-intestinal TG secretion rate. Rats fed on a 78% CD diet, which contained a-CD at the 24% level, showed abnormal symptoms such as poor appetite and constipation with gas accumulation in the large intestine, and some of them died during the first 2-week feeding period. However, the surviving animals showed adaptation to the diet in the later period of the 110-day feeding. These results suggest that a-CD may be classified as dietary fiber which can modulate lipid metabolism in rats. Furthermore, the CD mixture may be available as a calorie substitute for weight control, which may owe mostly to a-CD. © 1985, Center for Academic Publications Japan. All rights reserved.